MAKE THEM STOP!
So the cast from the new Broadway musical Lennon is singing on the Today show. Why? Why? Why? I really enjoy Lennon's music and their corny renditions are ruining it! They're singing a medly. A MEDLY for Christ's sake! Yuck!
Come on, people. I've accepted the existance of the musical as a valid artistic expression, but why do they have to keep making these pat and corny choices? Imagine is a very sappy song. It is dripping with it. It's passable under Lennon's earnest voice (barely) but it is positively sickening when it has a choral arrangement with a bunch of self-consciously emoting musical theatre actors trying really hard to let you know they REALLY FEEL it. Then to be followed, in the afforementioned medly style, with Give Peace a Chance punctuated by a feeble exclamation of "Stop the WAR!", "Yeah!". They could have just as well said, "Shout if you like pizza!", "Yeah!". It was completely meaningless.
Look, I liked Hair- with all its faults. I enjoy a lot of the art and music that came out of the 60's and 70's, but I don't kid myself. That time has passed and trying to recreate that feeling is a big mistake. We would be much better off making plays, movies and music about where we actually are today. Instead of trying to rally the troops- so to speak- why can't we face our apathy and terror head on? Why can't we examine where we are as a society instead of constantly dredging up the past and deluding ourselves about what that past meant? It is upsetting because the past is not being used to learn from but merely to worship. This gets us nowhere.
Greg Kinnear was also on the Today Show pimping the remake of The Bad News Bears. Why? When Mathau was just so good? Besides, The Bad News Bears was of its time, now it means something totally different. I digress. Katie Couric took Kinnear to task for there being so many re-makes coming out of Hollywood at the moment. He threw his hands up and brushed it off as how everything in Hollywood is essentially a rip-off. How disconcerting because Johnny Depp basically had the same response in an interview about Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It's always someone else's fault that there is only crap available to be made, and hey, an actor needs to make a living. If everyone knows there's an elephant in the cineplex then why are they complaining when no one wants to pay $10.00 a pop to go see it? It's the same fucking elephant. Do they think we don't notice?
Come on, people. I've accepted the existance of the musical as a valid artistic expression, but why do they have to keep making these pat and corny choices? Imagine is a very sappy song. It is dripping with it. It's passable under Lennon's earnest voice (barely) but it is positively sickening when it has a choral arrangement with a bunch of self-consciously emoting musical theatre actors trying really hard to let you know they REALLY FEEL it. Then to be followed, in the afforementioned medly style, with Give Peace a Chance punctuated by a feeble exclamation of "Stop the WAR!", "Yeah!". They could have just as well said, "Shout if you like pizza!", "Yeah!". It was completely meaningless.
Look, I liked Hair- with all its faults. I enjoy a lot of the art and music that came out of the 60's and 70's, but I don't kid myself. That time has passed and trying to recreate that feeling is a big mistake. We would be much better off making plays, movies and music about where we actually are today. Instead of trying to rally the troops- so to speak- why can't we face our apathy and terror head on? Why can't we examine where we are as a society instead of constantly dredging up the past and deluding ourselves about what that past meant? It is upsetting because the past is not being used to learn from but merely to worship. This gets us nowhere.
Greg Kinnear was also on the Today Show pimping the remake of The Bad News Bears. Why? When Mathau was just so good? Besides, The Bad News Bears was of its time, now it means something totally different. I digress. Katie Couric took Kinnear to task for there being so many re-makes coming out of Hollywood at the moment. He threw his hands up and brushed it off as how everything in Hollywood is essentially a rip-off. How disconcerting because Johnny Depp basically had the same response in an interview about Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It's always someone else's fault that there is only crap available to be made, and hey, an actor needs to make a living. If everyone knows there's an elephant in the cineplex then why are they complaining when no one wants to pay $10.00 a pop to go see it? It's the same fucking elephant. Do they think we don't notice?
posted by Bree O'Connor at 12:26 PM
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